REGINA – With all six of their losses clumped together at the mid-point of the season, the Edmonton Eskimos never completely had their playoff destiny in their own hands coming down the stretch.

But as for the parts they were able to control, they’ve been in complete control.

Making their first trip to the new Mosaic Stadium on Saturday (5 p.m., TSN, ESPN3, 630 CHED), the Eskimos are on a four-game win streak that saw them clinch at least the crossover playoff spot back in Week 17.

And aside from the Calgary Stampeders, who wrapped up first place in the West Division the following week, playoff seeding for all of the five other teams has come down to this weekend’s regular-season finale.

“We’ve been best when we haven’t really worried about that. All we’re trying to focus on is playing good football and winning the next one. And this week, it’s Sask.,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas, whose hopes of hosting next weekend’s West Division semifinal hinged not only on his team winning Saturday, but also the Stampeders not losing to the Winnipeg Blue Bomber one night earlier. “We talked about it at the beginning of the week, being excited that we have an opportunity of finishing in second, but second’s not going to come from anything but winning. And even if we win, we could still finish in third.

“So that’s why at the end of the day, you just focus on the task at hand, which is get better every day this week, focus on your job and beating Saskatchewan, because that’s all that matters right now.”

With all the pieces that were up in the air during preparations for the Week 20 showdowns, the one certainty for the Eskimos and the Saskatchewan Roughriders is a loss means crossing over to the East Division playoff bracket.

And both appear to be playing their best football of the season, with the Roughriders winning four of their last five to sit in fourth place with a 10-7, two points back of the Eskimos.

Edmonton, meanwhile, comes in off a 29-20 win over a Calgary club that has now finished at the top of the division four out of the past five seasons, giving way in 2015 to a Chris Jones-led Eskimos squad on its way to a Grey Cup championship.

That year, the Eskimos saw quarterback Mike Reilly bounce back from a knee injury that forced him to miss the first half of the season, leading the way to an eight-game win streak to wrap up their schedule before making it 10 in a row to capture the Cup.

“We certainly had a good football team that year there in Edmonton,” Jones said following Saskatchewan’s walk-through practice Friday at Mosaic as he gets set to face an Eskimos squad he coached to 12- and 14-win regular seasons before coming to Regina. “We got hot late and played good football down the stretch.”

And the Eskimos would like nothing more than to end their 2017 regular-season schedule with shades of that incredible run by heading into the post-season after pushing their win streak to five games.

“There are definitely similarities,” said quarterback Mike Reilly, who headed up a frightening injury list the Eskimos had back then, too. “We had our fair share of adversity in that season but came together at the right time.

“It wasn’t like we were playing flawless football when we started our undefeated run, but we were learning every week different ways to win games.”

Like a super-rainy Labour Day rematch in which they finally beat Calgary for the first time in a long time, or in a wind tunnel in Hamilton, where Reilly was held to under 50 passing yards and had more yards rushing?

“We were presented with different challenges throughout the second half of that season and had to win games in different ways,” Reilly said. “And that kind of prepared us for the playoff push as well. The Grey Cup game was a totally different experience, being down by 13 points before we even touched a ball.

“This year is a different year, for sure, but there are some similarities.”

Chief among them is finding ways to keep winning.

In and out: K Sean Whyte will play his first game since injuring his leg on July 26. LB Kenny Ladler comes in of the one-game injured list along with Alex Hoffman-Ellis, while LT Joel Figueroa (knee) will play his first game in three weeks … K Swayze Waters has been moved to the one-game IL, while OL D’Anthony Batiste and LB Nehemie Kankolongo were placed on the practice roster.

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.